Focus schools and vocational education in the Western Cape

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Focus schools and vocational education in the Western Cape

Larey, Desiree Pearl

2012-03

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The main goal of this thesis was to better understand the role and function of the focus schools
project in the Western Cape, to explore the reasons for their emergence in 2006, and to locate the
policy initiative within historical and policy developments around vocationalism in the province. The
study focused in particular on how one focus school experienced the roll-out of this policy decision,
what the impressions of the learners and educators at a case study school were, and also how
officials attached to the Western Cape Education Department described the emergence and
implementation of the policy.
Further goals of the study were to contextualize the policy process that led to this form of provision,
and to conceptualise how this fitted in with educational development issues in the province. A brief
backdrop of historical developments and its role in the education of communities in the Western
Cape, particularly the coloured community, was provided to contextualize the policy initiative. The
main contribution of the thesis is its description and analysis of policy documents and the
viewpoints of a range of people connected to a new provincial initiative, focus schools, with regard
to what a focus school is meant to achieve and how it is experienced. Data was collected by
studying a range of unpublished policy documents, and to link these to interviews conducted with
departmental and district officials, educators, learners, and one principal in relation to one case
study school.
The study showed that focus schools were regarded mainly as a form of vocational education
provision to accommodate the desire of the Western Cape economy for intermediate skills in the
mid-2000s. It illustrated how the focus school band has run its own unique course within
educational structures since 2006, and highlighted how they have fulfilled their goal of getting more
learners from historically disadvantaged communities into further study or into positions that better
serve the needs of the local economy.
The thesis suggested that the policy focus of getting learners into higher education seemed
misguided and contrary to the goals of vocational education provision. This policy confusion was
further highlighted by learners interviewed in the study who noted that they would have preferred to
follow a more academically-based path. Few believed they could either get to university (as
claimed by policy officials) or into a viable employment poisition by following a vocational route at
school.